001Hill School Consolidated School District 133 on the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. on January 29th 2025 um meeting is called the order by me Josh Hendricks board president and we do have a quorum present today Tina Anderson board member will be here she's just going to be uh a few minutes behind so Place set for the record call here here Anderson here here here here right if you'll all rise for PL Allegiance headgear please remove that I to the flag of the United States Nation indivisible for he Kyle Kyle I'll uh from Benny Benning Group LLC our uh District accountants yeah I'm kyus from Benning group I've been working with the district here for several years I think I've lost count at this point um we were out during the summertime to complete the
002audit uh we just got it wrapped up here year shortly after the end of the the calendar year um we were a bit delayed so I'm a little bit later than what I normally am to come see you um we did have a few delays getting some things from uh the districts end so that's why again I'm here a little bit later than than what I normally am in November or December for your meetings um you have a couple of documents there in front of me uh I'm going to go through a real high level on those one document that you don't have that I'm going to cover really quick it's called the financial profile score this is kind of isb's overall measure of financial Financial Health of the district um you score a 3.55
003out of a 4.0 there's two metrics that aren't a perfect for they're both a three uh one of them relates to revenues and expenditures in your operating funds I know there's some intentionality to spend down some of the reserves in those operating funds so when you look at it in the scope of isb's um metrics here it moves from a four down to a three U when you look at total of roughly $9 million of Revenue and spending in those funds you're $50,000 short of being a four so you're right there in that top tier category the other one that you get dinged on is the available long-term debt that you have available to you by Statute um the debt that you carry in your bonds is actually Exempted from the statutory legal debt limitation
004uh some of you may recall this from previous years based on the confines of is's calculation we cannot exempt that debt from theirs so even though it looks like some of this debt applies against your legal debt limitation in reality it really doesn't I just can't change what isb's form allows us to do but we've tried they will not let us and they will not give us the password to change their spreadsheet so I'm confined to what ISB uh requires there uh the smaller of the two packets that you have in front of you there that's our management letter as Auditors we're required to communicate certain things to you as the board in regards to internal controls uh and things of that nature um you see on page two there's some bullet pointed adjustments there
005in the middle of the page those are items that we to adjust to get the financial statements to the position of where they are where we can give our opinion on them so there's some bullet points there of things that that we've done um many of those are repeat adjustments not necessarily the same adjustment but the same type of adjustment of things that we had posted in Prior years so that translates to our comment on page four where it's got a bolded heading there about the middle of the page so we consider to be what's called a significant deficiency there's kind of three level of comments in our world there's kind of General other comments there's significant deficiencies that say Hey pay attention to me there's something here that we need to fix and then
006there's the worst of the worst which is material weaknesses where there's possibility that something's wrong within the numbers so this item with the adjustments that we posted within the financial statements we consider to be in that middle category um this is kind of intensifying the comment from years past where now some of these journal entries are repeats uh so our goal when we talked to to Clint and to Lisa was to help educate on what some of these items are that are being repeated and where Lisa and the district can get that information to be able to post the adjustments before we come in to to do the audit so I don't have any major underlying concerns on anything some of these are very specific accounting treatments that have changed in the last couple years
007but there are some things that just attention to detail stuff that I think Lisa can get um under control with a little bit of Education from from our part so um on the back page of that page five there is one other item that we consider to be an other comment it has to do with the expenditures the actual expenditures compared to your budget I'll get into that just a little bit deeper when I get into the the other audit report um in a second one thing I always like to call attention to with this back page page five here is the items that aren't there the things you don't see that were there last year that have now been resolved so three things that were on this report last year from us there is
008Grant expenditure reports that are required to get filed 20 days after the end of every quarter almost every one of our districts has this comment that it's inevitable that one of them gets filed late during the course of the year um big round of applause to Lisa and Clint and everyone involved in that they were all filed on time within that 20-day window um the other one which is a pretty consistent comment we see a lot of our districts is everyone got their statement of economic interest filed on time so that's a compliance requirement we have to look at for the state so well done to everybody from for getting that in on time um the last one which was the more significant comment that we had last year was documentation of the internal controls
009the processes the checks and balances that are in place at the district that we knew existed but weren't ever documented in writing um Lisa and Clint with the help of Rachel went through and got all of that up to speed I came out and spent a day over the summer and really dove into those things and said okay here's what we say we're doing is this what's happening in actuality um we tweaked some of the things based on what was written versus what was actually happening it seemed like certain cases things were pivoting more than what it was being done by the way it was written so it's just a matter of rewriting that and kind of flipping uh the thought process but overall no major holes in the internal control it was more of
010a matter of getting them documented so we have Reliance on them as Auditors that says this is what you say you're doing can we test that then and prove that that's in fact happening so getting those documents was a huge step from our end to making that happen and you know having forbid something H happens to someone in the process there's documentation there for someone to step in and understand what's going on and who looks at those things so that's what's not there anymore which is obviously a good good improvement from the year before so then the the thicker of the packet that you have that's our formal audit report uh we file a little different form that gets sent into is that's all been taken care of now so everything is up to date
011there um a few select pages that I'm going to cover here you get past the first view the table of content the first letter on our letter head it's got a heading on it says independent auditor report we're required to give an opinion on your financial statements uh we give what's called an unmodified opinion which means that it's clean the numbers are where they're supposed to be and they're the right amounts any questions on that the next letter so it's technically page five in the report there um that's our report on internal control I talked a little bit before about the internal control and the processes and documenting all that we don't give an opinion on internal control because we don't test it to that minute detail but we look at internal control enough to
012understand it and then be able to test the underlying numbers that built the financial statements so the only thing that we had noted there in that internal control was the material audit adjustments that we posted um that need to be hopefully corrected then when we get the numbers next year okay anything to add on any of that that we talked about oh I think you tell me to knock it off um page six is the is the balance sheet so at at the end of the fiscal year in June there's about five and a half million in cash uh based on how you report your financial statements that five and a half million basically represents the reserves that you have available in your various funds so if you look across the columns on page six
013there you can kind of see what's in each one of those individual funds at at the end of June um the next page is the income statement so if you look on page seven third line from the bottom that's what uh shows as the operating Surplus so positive number the numbers in Brackets there would be deficits so any of the funds that show um the bracketed numbers there are a deficit spending for the year the transportation fund that shows the deficit spending was within I think $1,000 of the budget of what it was projected to be so almost spot on from that end uh total overall I know there's no nice neat total column on there about $101,000 Surplus for last fiscal year any questions on any of that okay the last piece that I'll
014jump to is on page 56 this relates to the budget expenditure comment that I noted a few minutes ago so if you look on the top of page 56 we have to call attention to any funds that overexpanded their budget so please understand that this is looking purely on an expenditure only basis this is not that overexpanded what the budget was for the fiscal year the original budget stayed intact there was no amended budget so as of the end of the year each of those funds that you see listed spent more than what the original budget called for now if you look at get the grand scheme you operated about half a million dollars better in total than what the budget called for there was about a $300,000 deficit in last year's budget and total
015operations was over 100,000 to the positive so we again we have to look at it on an expenditure basis that ISB says you need to give fair and accurate representation of what your intended expenditures are obviously there was revenues more than enough revenues to offset what the additional spending was because you're still net positive but we have to call attention to when any fund overex exended that budget was so Clint and I talked about uh different ways to examine this as the year comes to a close what the amended budget process would look like um I I don't wan to I don't want to recommend amending the budget just to line with what you actually did because then you lose all context to the budget really but there are situations where we had a major
016building item come up that we weren't budgeting for that would be an item then to kind of individually add that to your onm budget so you can see that yes we operated within our budget kind of excluding this one significant item that we had no control over those are the kind of considerations to make I think when you do the amended budget now things that Clint and I talked about it you know you can watch out when the time comes you know April May time frame so overall Auto went well clean opinion we got everything in the right spot and I think uh Lisa is in a good spot hopefully with going forward so great questions on any that no okay appreciate you getting me to the top of the agenda for thanks good see
017you five I of prie Hill Patriots pen participants we have do we have any other perception of it visitors we do Daniel benck oh no we don't there teacher here and took over Patriots pen and Mrs SS and left the team uh so one of my favorite things to be able to do every year is uh bring the Patriots F asay contest which is done through our BFW um to our district and um this is a contest that is an un wide contest um last year uh there were over 73,000 na who participated and each year our sixth through eighth graders are eligible to participate um and we do that through our local Rosco BFW Mr Tom CL has been a gracious host of that and keeping everything to him on time um so I'm
018glad that he can be here tonight um to see some of the kids that he gets read the essay for and things like that but um this year's uh prompt was a little bit uh trickier than it has been in years past in my personal opinion so I was really excited when we got essays in from all three grade levels six seventh and eighth graders participated we had seven students participate again this year which is great um and I think just one of the biggest things that stands out for this contest is that it's something extra that they choose to do outside the school there's no teacher feedback given on their essays um and it's just it's showing that they're going above and beyond they're using their voice through their writing which I think is
019huge it's not being graded which is a benefit for them um and sometimes they get extra cash which is great um so this year's uh um prompt was my voice in America's democracy um which I thought was an interesting one and there were some really good essays turned in um unfortunately we had a conflict with all the sports things that are going on lots of people are at practices and stuff so we only have a few kids but I want to make sure we name everybody that did participate do we have we do okay perf are we ready for ready okay uh first we have Preston Bean in sixth grade participate who's not here tonight uh Arya merley who's the seventh grader participated she's not here tonight A is here certificate congratulations we had Aon
020mner who's an eighth grader and not able to attend tonight participate um our third place winner was Charlotte Miller who was a seventh grader um she's unable to be here tonight our second place winner was Aiden Weber uh who's an eighth grader he's unable to be here tonight his sister actually won first place the last two years which was cool to see him win second place um and then our first place winner is Linley good day and she is a sixth grader and Lenley also won first place at the next step which is the district level of the contest which going into State um and we already know Mr cland correct that she is GNA score in the top four is that correct at state which means there she this first place she may end
021up going to the National level of the contest so I'm really excited because I've never had a student make it this far which is super cool um and L is going to read her essay for us she also takes care of the e taking the time to learn about current events [Music] not just AAL Society by actively speaking out different perspectives and experiences I can my own the world it is to openminded and the willingness to learn others all the Injustice problem is through understanding and empathy that connect one another bring the Gap that separate using EMB Lear OFA invol standing up discrimination anding a culture of cooperation child um I just wanted to say I thank the school district and the board and especially Andrea for your support of this program um I've been
022working with W Brook for I don't know probably close to 10 years I the last 4 five with Andrea and then I worked I think one or two years with uh Mrs Andrews and then then uh Mrs Dixon for the number of years and um we've all always we've always had a great uh turnout for this contest I did want to say that um this is a written essay contest so when when it comes to the judging all the judges see is what the student wrote and the first time I'm not sure but I'd say the first time lle ever read her speech was at the district in front of about a 100 people so she was she was very nervous I'm sure but uh every you know so every time she reads it she
023gets more confident and I and as Andrea said at the state um voice of democracy Patriots pen banquet which will be February 8th in Springfield Lenley is one of the top four uh in the Patriots SP we don't know which one of the top four so she could be anywhere from fourth to first place and uh we'll be excited to to hear the uh the uh the results of that but at the very least fourth place um she will be awarded $300 um for fourth place at the uh State banquet so um the other thing I wanted to say is that next Tuesday April 4th or February 4th April at 5:30 we are having an awards program at petza party at the Rosco VFW for all the uh Patriot span participants and voice democracy participants
024and if any of you would like to uh be in attendance we have invited the students and their families but if any of you would like to stop by um you're more than welcome and um we should have plenty to eat and uh and uh so you're more than welcome um again I just want to thank everyone the students parents School District everyone Andrea for participating in this contest I believe it's very important because um it gives these students a an Avenue to express their feelings of patriotism and these students are some of the biggest supporters of our veterans and um I we really appreciate all the hard work they've done one last comment is I appreciate the hard work that the school board does because I was on the North Moon school board for
025eight years so I know what you're going through and I'm sure it hasn't gotten any easier since I was on starting in 1979 so thank you for everything you do and U thank you for allowing these students to participate in this program thank you very much thank you before you go we also want to present you with pride of Prairie Hill thank you for thank you hey the two students who are here do you want to take a picture with them over here real quick yeah girls you want to you want to exit at this time you're welcome to do that right unless you want to stay you don't need to stay for the rest if you don't want to thank you picture yeah tell over there you said you should should picture no I
026thought about yelling uh one last pride of PR Hill and unfortunately uh Danielle vck is not here this evening she's fill but we want to recognize teacher vanck for the Golden Apple so Hill certificate for as all right um sent agenda entertain a motion for the approval of December regular meeting minutes December committee meeting minutes January bills in the amount of $338,800 $436,500 administrator reports Mr Carter is ill this evening all right absolutely yeah Mr Carter was not able to be here says happy New Year apologies for not being here I want to send a thank you to the PSA for putting on the fun fair great to see so many students show up it was a really Co event uh prek Kinder screening is going on right now thank you to the teachers and
027Subs to help take care of this the lottery will take place in February uh pick a time opens on Monday for February conferences please take or please look for an email from Mrs Passmore book fair will be open for both conferences this time thank you to miss Bertrand our new librarian for coordinating this our friendship assembly was Monday please look for the photo in uh Mr Carter's periodical this Friday our caring assembly will be the first week in March and the I and I ready diagnostic discussions are happening in cab I testing will take place after spring break so that'll be our third and final one questions for Pudo Mr Carter okay this is Thompson all right um so first I just wanted to say thank you to Andrea for doing Patriots pen um I
028think it's kind of cool as a just for myself seeing some of the things that were here in place when I was a teacher and then getting to see that those Traditions have carried on even over the changes we've had in staff and it's always cool to see kids in a different life where they get to Showcase something that um we don't get to see every single day probably tell L's kind of a quiet girl but she's brilliant and she has a lot of great things to say so for something like this it really showcases kids in a way that not every day school gets to offer all of the time um so congrats to both of them and thank you Andrea for doing that um as Mr Hendricks mentioned I just wanted to say
029congratulations to Daniel vanck um she is in the top 20 which means that she's at the point in the process where um committees come in and observe her teaching in the classroom um so so she's in that in January is when that is happening so they've been in one time they'll be in I I believe two more times um and then see what shakes out but either way she's a wonderful teacher we're very fortunate to have her um so award or not at the end of it she's well-deserving and she works very hard um but we wish her the best in all of that I think it's always fun to mention that we had a Ry sighting this week we came in to read to some classroom for Hatchet and so that's always U it's
030always fun just to see him kind of continue his little dropin and little his little visits that he had so he was here um I know previously we talked about art Saddler and just the volunteers and how that program works and I just wanted to mention um we did end up keeping it volunteer basis and for those of you who don't know Jamie young um and Josh Ballard are sharing the responsibility of it even though it's not something that's necessarily run through our school um they've done a really great job coordinating the teams and organizing with our custodial staff and and hosting um additionally we have the Jack Balman Foundation who is running sessions and also the table to raise money for that organization which has been really cool to see so that's going really
031smoothly um this year and I just wanted to mention that um here at Littlebrook we have our girls basketball season is underway our quis our quiz team is up and running they're practicing their facts and trivia after school today there are 10 members um on that team made up from sixth graders all the way to eighth graders which is cool um and as mentioned in Mr Carter's report we do have conferences coming up so we will open pick a time on Monday which is this coming Monday um February 3rd we will also have the book fair here again when that takes place um and then also we do have I I coming up in April and then also at the middle school we test fifth graders in eighth graders on Illinois Science assessment any questions
032on any that okay Mr Siz yeah um one thing I just want to bring up and we had talked about a little bit last month and the month before is the committee of the whole just want to know the board's thoughts on if that's something we'd like to try in February about that so I thought about it about day and a half after we can stick with committees I'm just throwing it out there I'm totally open to doing it I know we had said we were gonna attend one to kind of get a feel for it um but I'm also open to just try is something that Mr Carter would be willing to attend as I think he does would they would admin attend the committee of the whole typically not but I mean if
033we asked them to be there yeah I'm just thinking it through because he has experience not necessarily because he's the principal yeah of oh the one we do not go attend a different one to okay and I guess my question would be when would we when would we hold it because we took do the finance committee meeting a week before and we do the other ones two weeks before yeah most of the commit of the whole that I've I've seen they schedule about two weeks like two weeks before so two weeks we have before okay would we be able to have financial report though that the most reason I am definitely over okay thoughts do we want to make a motion to propose that start a Comm the can we have a motion for that
034I mean or just more like are you you can do an do you want to try it next doesn't have to be a roll call I'm open to it yeah okay give it a so all those in favor of one committee meeting I hios we'll tell you the day after don't uh don't you guys usually come to the aded meeting so we come upon now we don't come to everyone we come invited okay for like so they each came like recently so now it maybe be a few the beginning of the year and then came for Mid and got it okay right so if we stick with the two weeks it be February 12 I was just going to ask that I was like can we say a date out loud so that I remember
035it connect oh is it so I'm gonna make okay there you go um and then I can just send an email to see 5:30 works or five right great we up today this 12th and we'll figure out the time that uh just a couple other things just want to give heads up nothing on the agenda for approval uh but looking towards next year uh it's already February Bebe February here soon uh just some future positions that we can talk through a little bit through the committee of the whole um and see what that looks like so we currently have a part-time stem ESL position um and what we'd like to do is um and we can have discussion about that again at the at the committee of the whole um but we'd like to take
036that stem position make that into a full-time position uh that will allow for a lot more equity and opportunity for the students within the pry Hill building not necessarily here at will Ro stem is something that we've talked about possibly adding to the willbrook building but um I think if we were able to put that full-time stem position in that might give us a better idea about what it might look like at the roller levels how we can build on it at the at the uh secondary level if we were to ever take that leap um so that's something I'll be looking for in February and again we can have more discussion about that uh so with that if we to make that position full-time we would take the ESL position and instead of it
037being a halftime we'd also make that a full-time position um that's a need right now for sure when I first started seven years ago we were at about a half a dozen kids and now we're pushing 30 and every year it's just more and more so uh to give you a little bit of perspective I believe kenck just right down the road um I think there are like 50 60 students I'd have to take a look around there but they have three full-time ESL people so uh it's a definite need to to dective uh not a want uh to help service the students in both buildings it'd be a district-wide position so um sy's done the best that she's has been able to do over the years um and also she's retiring this year so
038it's a really nice opportunity for us to hire that position and have somebody in here that can take the load for both buildings um and then one more is a full-time special education additional position over at Prairie Hill uh our numbers are quite large right now and from gallon standpoint it's something that we'll need to do so just giving you a heads up on those um and then one more thing that I'd like to propose again nothing's actionable tonight um like to have an actionable item in February uh is possibly looking to go to a co- teing model uh and beginning that over PR Hill so uh right now we have uh you know a lot of Need for students that need a lot of help right that's why I'm asking you for a special
039education teacher here in February but uh the co- teing model is something that some of our neighboring districts do and essentially what that is is you have a classroom teacher then you have a special education teacher that goes into the classroom helps to push in to do different things with um differentiated instruction uh one-on-one instruction uh the ability to um what's that interv yeah interventions uh more small group instruction that sort of thing so uh something you know Administration and I have been talking about for about the last year or so uh so it'd be a really nice opportunity with just the need that we see to be able to try a model like that so um something I'll be looking for for next year just to for next year for approval for next month
040just to give you a heads up um and the reason I'm bringing that to you now as as many of you know is the earlier that we can post for these positions the better chance we have to get the the best quality applicants instead of waiting until March April um let's see I think that's it I that's all I have for now any questions okay um building and finance uh we met yesterday or yesterday evening I should say um we met it here at 430 I believe 430 in here yesterday Jason Crouch te Anderson I and and Clint were present for that we reviewed the January bills we reviewed had a review of the monthly deposits activity accounts treasury report we reviewed the benting annual financial report as well we also discussed first student which
041is on the docket tonight for uh for a vote we went into executive session where we discussed employment appointment matters negotiations and then we adjourned next meeting for that was set for no we're gonna do that now Wednesday the 12th on February 12th so anything I missed on finance we want to cover no but you the first student contract extension with some good news you might want to share the numbers yeah when they first came back um they were very interested in doing a five-year contract the nations were very interested that because more we can control cost and budget form the better off we are uh when they initially came to us they were just north of 30% over the five years and so we had some back and forth discussions uh and so right
042now what I'll be asking for tonight is a who will for next year through the 2029 2030 school year uh they've asked for the breakdown down of a 9% next year and then four fours after that so 25% so we got them down about 5% uh the reason for the 9% right off the bat uh are a few different reasons one is they have a new CV so they have salaries to pay obviously and benefits uh the other the other bigger there are some smaller things but the other bigger aspect of it is uh the fleet of buses so a lot of their buses are coming up on the age that I think it's like 12 or 13 years that we have in the contract uh that we're comfortable with so they're going to have
043to start buying new buses and getting those in the rotation um so that's that's a big part of the 9% up front and then to be able to control the cost for the four four fours afterwards uh makes a ton of sense if you remember when they came back to us with the three-year that we're currently um coming up on I think it was like 177% the first year that we had I was gonna ask I remember being a big number and then the same format but bigger numb I feel at the beginning but that was a huge number compared to the 9% yeah um and you know to be perfectly honest there's and and transparent there's not a lot of players in the area for transportation purposes um there are a couple but there
044are smaller options and they wouldn't be able to handle the districts that serve that serve us through first student um we've got a good relationship with them and and we've had a good relationship with them we had some Kinks when we first started out this first three year and I think they've ironed a lot of those out we've got a lot of people that we can contact field trips are still a little bit of an issue uh just from drivers but that's that's increased and and gotten better too just like our subpool has so uh coming out of the pandemic so uh all in all the nation see this as a win-win I see it as a win as far as budgeting purposes are concerned um and that'll keep us good through the next five
045years was there any further discussion about the external cameras on the buses yeah it I mean it's there's nothing set in stone at this time and and it's something that Liddell is looking into but nothing that's like concrete and and to be honest with you like right now this is the proposal that we're looking to approve so the actual language of it like we can talk about hey we want to see some arms or we want cameras close by like the 50 buses or maybe that be part of the B absolutely great and I think some of that's a part of the the safety standards for busing anymore anyway good um so that'll definitely all be a part of the discussion but right now it's the the financial aspect of it you know if these
046are the new robust that I don't know I can find out though new ones all do let me find out I know because I watched it I have a quick question sorry for fining um I'm just curious this report that we get here on page six and seven where they lay out like the statements of asset liabilities and expenditure I know we as a board get the board report that looks likeing but it doesn't goes bills like is there a that we could save the like monthly spend in like the way that the are separated out yeah actually if you go into just at the bottom mod so the consent agenda Treasures report should give you a good idea there um and there are other ways that I can manipulate those numbers too if you
047have speciic oh the um yeah I just know sometimes when we having big budgetary conversations sure it's nice to like be able to kind of see where we're at and I see what you guys have been adding over the last few months it's hard for me to like wrap my head around what that like a bending like I don't know I don't know where that falls in our actual big bucket sure um but you're saying in the consent agenda that's where I should be looking for more of like the expenditure yeah and there's the um there's a revenue and expense report in there too that really breaks everything down looking the wrong spot under Finance you look in the mon pleas I think it's kind the cost of coding on and two does yeah so
048if you look at our the every every Finance me we have has a cating in it on every bill that we get whe it be pizza or milk or whatever reimbursements for the annual conference all that okay it just depends on how deep down you want to go no I'm just looking at the big big picture when we're having like big Financial conversations I saw that like that helps brain understand absolutely and if you want more specific stuff just reach out no I'll sort of looking in the consent agenda now that I know that that's I just keep looking at that this format is typically required for the end of your audited financial statements because ISB requires it yeah um but to put this in a I think monthly might be too much because there's
049so many timing issues that even a quarterly format a lot of schools do that oh sure yeah I mean I don't want to like change something that's happening but I I just I saw that was like that's really help to kind of understand sure I mean it wouldn't take much for her to just it's the same coding that she does for the the the reports put them in this format a quarter lot of schools will do that it's just a matter of it report I mean is that something that would be helpful to everyone else otherwise like you said I can look at the consent agenda so I know I I'm feel kind of the same way like the one that you pointed out the tunel report is very convinced the the full line item
050one is very 40 pages long I think the one I think the one I'm seeing here is kind of in between those two it's not just so you understand Finance we actually every month I know it's 40 what you like we look at that we look at every single invoice that backs that up too and then once we review that get short questions Point sign off on it every question right every other one are all the way down to P so many every th how much are they P $260 show them maybe just idea and then everything where you know there's a new position hiring it is helpful to kind of for those who are not in the space to have a a little bit more of a bigger picture but kind of in those
051bucket of the way that you budget y that might be helpful for us to have a little bit better Foundation of what we're talking about Tina if you don't mind I'll reach out to you to if there are different names for reports that I could look for to run those got thank you uh we also in finance uh discussed Staffing which Clint already covered in District update so don't want to miss that we did discuss Staffing as well so uh that's all for ability and finance if there's no other questions I'll entertain a motion to approve the first student contract for the 2025 2026 through 2029 202030 2030 sorry May restate that motion to approve first student contract for 2025 through 2026 through the 2029 through 2030 school years I'll second Mr yes yes Mr
052H yes yes yes Mr yes Mr yes education and transportation we met on January 16th it was the education Committee of myself Tim and Stephanie and Clint and then also Carter came to this meeting Jackie came to our one in December to kind of give us a midyear update about how the school year is going and um as evident by Mr Carter being at sick today and some other students and teachers being sick that particular day he was saying that there were 19 staff out in the district um influenza A was going around like crazy and a lot of par positions have been hard to fill for subing as well too um however we are seeing that increase in our subpool which is helping and then uh I just want to give a shout out
053as well to all of those teachers that are pulled especially our interventionists like um the RTI teachers at prair Hill that get pulled they have to be very flexible to have that position because I think they go in thinking they're going to work on something and then they get pulled to sub and cover here so and I know that happens at wilbrook all the time as well so thank you for the flexibility for our teachers doing that and then Mr Carter just kind of gave his overall update so far as we know it's his first year being principal at curay Hill very complimentary of the staff and the students and the family and parents and everyone saying he's seen amazing things we all know it's happening as well um observing the teachers and getting to
054know the students and a lot of great feedback one Trend that he is noticing that was mentioned before in previous board meetings is chronic absenteeism which came up in our I believe our school report card too something with absenteeism so he's diving deep into Data with that and looking at Trends um and working with one of our teachers at Prairie Hill who's actually getting their master's degree and something along this line too so looking for ways to start to engage the community and educate parents about just how much uh if you look at like even if they miss just you know a few days here and there how much instructional time it adds up to or even if you're just tting or five minutes late every day that equates to being gone do you remember
055the number of days it was something like for every 10 30s it was like three two days of instruction full day of instruction two full days of instruction yeah yes so just oh it's okay if you're 5 minutes late 5 minutes late but it really does add up so just beginning those conversations on how to educate parents Community students things like that to try and improve some of those chronic absenteeism that we're seeing and then just to let you know in his next periodical there's a a visual that's going to be in there for parents just to just to give an idea UC it's good was also really interesting that it was opposite of what we thought which was the absentee is increases by grade as they get older which we thought there' be more
056atenism in like kindergarten first grade preschool and then as they got older maybe parents were not staying home you have to like yeah we were thinking like we were more likely you take your kids out when they're little for a vacation but as they get older and the homework gets harder we don't do I don't you know that like in our AB it was opposite what we all thought it would be so I think there is an education seven and gr exact Dr kids off on time yeah it was really interesting toar about it and those chronic absenteeism just to kind of clarify too because I know I began this daying that flua is going around crazy so obviously stay home sick but those chronic absente isms cases are a little bit different um and
057then he also is starting three new committees with the staff there's going to be a safe committee the goal is to start in March looking at just again that feedback that they received from doing some of the drills from um fire police officers that were present just the feedback on things that they can improve on so looking at establishing a Safety Committee a leadership committee that will be starting in April and a scheduling committee and this scheduling committee is just looking not to make like the building schedule which you know is pretty much established at Prairie Hill because you have your classroom teachers but looking at some of those elective um or specials teachers and great ways to utilize their support staff Paras things like that too so I think it's great you know if
058Mr Carter is here i' give him Kudos again that he is observing a lot in his first half of the year and then implementing some ways that we can become even better but he's using the staff to do that all of these committees uh he sent out Google forms or interest forms and then it was teachers volunteering to be on the Committees so a lot of teacher voice will be on them as well and I think that was it there's anything I'm missing I think I would just say um it was really fun to hear him speak and talk about his first year experience so far and I think if you you know just as a board it also was we made a great like yes you interviewed and picked the right person he is
059a really great addition to the admin he cares so much about the teachers and the students and he has some really great perspectives that he's bringing um and it seems like the way that he's relationally navigating change is also good job so thank you yes that's it for Education unless there are any questions I just have a question I gu for Jackie not related to him but you mentioned the and whatnot for willbrook um board member had off parent teacher had on I'm hearing a lot of discussion about students wishing they had their study halls back started what we did this year which is I know we took it away but then there's the option I think to get it back like once a week or something are we looking at that I will be
060real honest I have not thought too far and deep about putting it back in for next year yet um I think there are a lot of positives to the electives that we've added in and I think some students are really benefiting from that um we do have I would say intervention study hall options where we're finding some chronic absenteeism or chronic missing work or in lie of an elective we will send students to a particular room to have that study hall when they're showing us that they need it um by and large the feeling that study halls were used really effectively in the past is not always the case in every class every grade level so in the new electives are at least getting other exposure and for example we were able to bring back
061Spanish which was something that was important to us our seventh and eighth graders are getting Spanish um there's also in the past if you remember like they can only choose band and chir or like they missed out on art or music or theater or those different things that I think are very valuable to Children becoming well-rounded and finding what they like their passions in the Middle School um so this year we're able to give them both where they can have band and music but also do art or cultural appreciation or Spanish they kind of cycle through all of those um with that being said I know that all of our elective teachers have granted one day of study in each of their electives so I wouldn't say that they're not getting study hall at all
062it's just on every single day um so there haven't been any decisions made I think that we will always continue to offer support for students who show us that they need that in within our school B um so some students will inevitably always have a place for a study hall even though it might not be on a schedule um this the high school does not offer a study hall um unless you have a specialized plan where you might be placed into one so it really is great preparation for them going into high school to be able to time manage of that overall if I'm just speaking fre Le since we've gone to standards based here getting homework completed is always been problem um because there isn't a necessarily A Val like a numerical value attached
063to it it's really getting kids to understand that their practice and prep is to prepare them for that assessment which is where that scort comes in so we're doing different incentives things here um whole schoolwise to try to really move the needle on the homework completion piece but I think some of it too is you get middle schoolers to a point and a lot of parents will say oh they Middle School it's on them now and we kind of hands off but in fact they still need a lot more guidance and a lot more checking and a lot more kind of like putting that accountability ownership back on them so it's not an option for kids to choose but we will support them as Educators when we feel that they don't have the supports at
064home or the ability at home or ref finding patterns they aren't able to do it at home we will give sod H their day which just throw out there maybe adding it a instead of an elective would you choose to keep I know a lot of the athletes they're like I miss my study hall because by the time I get practice games away games it's like8 night and I'm exhausted and I miss that one hour of study hall I have to do it again yeah nothing's off the table for sure but I I will say uh collectively I don't feel like it was utilized by the majority even with work so um I think they're getting a lot more value right now with exposure to other things but we always discuss and kind of look
065and talk like I'll talk to teachers as spring comes here and talk about that aspect of things and and I by no means get the I'm just saying maybe have that option I do art Spanish whatever some students who are just not as quick Learners whatever I mean I think it's important to point out too because we do have to act as board members and parents and we hear it from every side right like it's obviously what you're hearing from the parent side but I and I'm on the education committee so I have to separate it but like I hear such the opposite that that's one of those I put the Trust In the admin and the teachers because I don't know that I trust anything that my seventh grade boy tells me he needs
066out of his day I'm just saying like I'm just saying I see it you know I see that it's a hard read coming from the kids I know they're stressed and we put them in too much and all that fantastic Spanish was story everybody yeah but I just heard so much like I missed my study hall that's when I got on my H done and now I to do it at 9:30 at night that one sports or whatever I definitely hear that keep in mind we do still have fifth grade study hall because they're new and the whole concept is new so they get it every single day um as I mentioned we talked with electives very early on they're offering it in their elective periods once a week so they kids still get a
067study hall at least once a week um the ones who we find you know need the support we always shift and that's what's one thing that's great about us being small and being a tiet community is like we can do that here we can shift and accommodate as they need as they're showing us they need that support um but I think come eth grade and I know Kelly could speak to that like they don't they don't have it in high school you know their lunch is their time basically to get their homework done so it is important I think and also stepping them to prepare and you'll also see a trend different grade levels have different amounts of homework um and even I could say like the math block right now there's a significant amount
068of time for them to do work in class so like if kids are coming home with a large portion of homework from the middle school they are not using their class time wisely and I think that is something that is important for us to teach them before they leave so again we always take into that all that consideration I appreciate you bringing it up and I think you'll always have some type of intervention space for that for those who need it whether or not it's whole group I I think it becomes a little challenging too with numbers like if I have a survey that says how many of you want to study hall and let's say 50 of a class of 100 want a study hall so I would assign two teachers to that and
069then I would have two electives and then all my best friends in hereis and all the parents are emailing to switch at some point we can't do that because you assign so many teachers to so many classes for so many numbers um so like we we get to a point where we say you know no we're not shifting out of Band anymore no we're not shifting out a fireo anymore because we don't have any more spaces in these classes because they can only house so many kids and electives are sometimes a little bit harder to run with the numerical quantity that they have just the structure of the of them so we try to keep that in mind too so however we move forward we just have to make sure that numbers are good for
070teachers to have a fair amount in their classroom right policy General so Steph myself and Clint met on and we reviewed om action items that stff is going to go over here shortly our presentation uh we had items to note for Clint or Nikki to address the minutes agenda things like that um somewhere sent your way Josh for stating during the meeting um otherwise we reviewed section one a short one at the end all those policies were in compliance no fiveyear reviews but then we have a few policies that are on for a first reading it's just there for a fiveyear review we didn't we don't have any press updates Forum we didn't have anything that needed to be changed from our perspective so it's just kind of reapprovals on those for second reading or
071you can ask them now otherwise hey I'll put it up um in sh really so as you know we have um as a policy committee taken on a deep dive of our Oma the open meetings act um to review um any potential discrepancies that we might have um make sure that we still are in confiance um and so we what we want to discuss here is we pretty much done um so we want to just quickly talk about you can go to the next slide um the agenda for this presentation we're going to talk about the approach we took what our findings were and then the next steps so first to speak to the approach um what we did is we pulled all available resources and I could actually say Justin pulled all available resources
072really hard um to grab um every resource and the reference I'll show that on the next slide in just a minute but um we utilized all the references that we have um for the op meeting open meetings act including all of our policies that we review and then we also utilize some examples um from different districts locally uh then we took those resources we created a cited um Oma review document again Justin did that I'm not GNA say we because that was a lot of work for him um it's a 20page document that you all have had access to over the last couple months um um and then together we started working through um that document uh we utilize a color system to flag the different priorities and what that just means is um within
073the Oma code um there are policies where there's specific requirements that you have to adhere to for the open meetings act but then there's also things that are strongly recommended um there are things that maybe are best practice that we could utilize they're also just some items that are worth discussing that maybe they're not even really a recommendation or best practice but if you want to just take another step um into being even more transparent or showing more information we can talk about options as well so we went through and highlighted everything and then we anything that required immediate action step um is what we focused on first um and then we spent three committee meetings reviewing together and a ton of additional research time um was conducted individually um Justin and I um as
074we kind of went through and did all the color coding we determined together what do we want to bring to the board for discussion what do we know we need to take those immediate action steps on so um yeah so if you go to the next slide these are just the list of the references here you'll see um that we have some ex a couple example agendas that we looked at have we've got some EIC cues there um of course is ISB if we're utilizing our policy um as well and then the document letting sunshine in which also speaks a little bit more deeply I didn't note it here but we also do have um our um policy reviews that we have done in the past our om reviews that we've referenced as well laori
075Martinez who will be there for um next week our internal Board review she had also passed over some Doc mentation we did training with our lawyers I think two or three years ago so we also referenced that but these were the key documents that we used um so I want to get to the findings spent a lot of time put a lot of energy into it I'm glad we did it um there are 153 omate guidance items that we um worked through together again some are required by policy um buer policy some are strongly recommended and others are some best practices in total we found and resolve 17 discrepancies um and 17 actually is higher than what it it actually in total ends up being because there's overlap between them and I'll explain that um
076I want to um speak to something an action step that we're going to take but I do just want to call out there are a lot of guidance items here and so you know as a policy like it's important we are going through line by line and scrutinizing all of it um but we're doing a pretty good job so I do want to like all I know you we we have over here been like the little people are like hey make sure you say that one thing make sure you say that thing but in reality the other 42 things you're supposed to be doing you're doing correctly so of the discrepancies that we found you're going to see they're very minimal worth pointing out of course worth resolving um but we were really happy with
077our findings so let's go through those really quickly um from the genda perspective which is what is posted which is what we have um every month which is the public posting as well we have the date time um noted on the meeting we did not specify Library so we will now start specifying the actual location which is the library will we have will have the room we do not have the room so that has been implemented and updated um identifying the school board by District name number we were missing County on our agenda so we have count um the type of meeting that we have every month from this is another one of those overlaps you're going to see it a couple times here so again like I said that number should go down from
07817 but on the agenda when we are in a regular board meeting you now will have no uh it noted that it is a regular right now it just says board meeting now it will say regular um that is to differentiate if we ever do a special board we will add that something that we already uh corrected a couple months ago is is um listing consent agenda items including the approval of our closed meeting minutes so now instead of um just saying consent agenda items we are bulleting what is in those consent agenda items and then the action taken after Clos session must contain the general nature of final action to to be on the agenda what that means is we were saying approve the Personnel report and now what we need to um what
079we should be doing is contain um add a little bit more to the general nature of that so I gave an example hire resignation and transfer of certified not certified staff um so those are the changes that we are making to our agenda we have connected with Clint Nikki these all are actively being implemented or have beened moving on to the consent agenda itself um the change that we need to make is just that um Josh which he already has corrected um will announce the consent agenda items during the day that's okay moving on to minutes um dollar amounts are now going to be posted we would um noted in our minutes that there we had bills in payroll but now we're adding our dollar amounts for the employment votes um we were um we
080actually going back and forth with our lawyers right now because there is a a little bit of a gray area in the policy um but we will be including names of employees and actions being taken for employment votes um but we are determining what that specifically does mean or potentially like if there's any um exceptions to that uh another thing for the minute is we just have to update um what type of board meeting it is so now in our minutes we just have to write the word regular next to dep um during our um introduction uh Josh just needs to declare that a for was present which he did tonight thank you very much and we'll make sure that's noted in the minutes um and then the minutes and update here that you will
081see is even though we are voting and showing who has voted during roll call for um each one of our motions we need to record at the end of each one this motion has passed so or has not passed and then again when we are um payroll if we are motioning to approve any payroll we do need to itemize or show a total payroll amount motions there need to notate that close meeting minutes this one we've already again address the motion to roll call vote that legally close the meeting um needs to just be written into the Clos meeting minutes uh the motion and exemption um once we start recording in our closed meeting Josh just needs to restate what that motion is which he's already been doing and then close session meetings um we
082say on in our regular meeting minutes when we have opened closed um for both we also need to just dictate that into our CL meeting minutes I think you actually are doing that but I can't out minut I just kept it on here to just wait for say um and then the uh final two is for executive session the agenda when we are discussing again this is just an overlap here um but when we are discussing employment matters if there is final action required we do need to uh State more than uh what the the personal report we just to State the general nature of that um and then when we do make our motions and and write our minutes we need to have the employment employees name um stated okay and then the final
083um one which is um training so the policy requires that there is an employee designated to receive yearly all training we have always done that our um employee is Clint um and after we went through all of this work ourselves and dedicated um 4 hours it was a lot of time we felt really strongly that a policy Committee Member should also um we should self- select as a board and I think it's important to understand why because I'm obviously born in May and so Justin will be designated but for my perspective of this I think that om is meant to protect the community it's meant to make sure that we are accountable that we're transparent that we are not hiding things and so it is a very wonderful policy we should have the policy we
084should know the policy and at the beginning of the school year this was something that our community brought to us and spoke with a lot of concern about om and because we did not have a specific representative on the board we could have we could have responded very quickly and not spend 40 plus hours of our time when we had a lot of other work um to be done and things that are really important the district now I'm not saying this is not important but when you look at what the findings were it what it we we were fine we had a couple things to address we could have addressed those really quickly so I'm not saying it's by any stretch was a it was a good exercise it was not a waste but I
085would been very clear in the policy I I I don't want to do it again there's so many things in our district that are really important so many things that matter and and this is the thing that should be like the guard rail for us and not the thing that distracts us from the import so um Justin has willingly accepted the role and is happy to also commit to the annual training um and so he'll do that every year for two years we don't want have a policy uh member do it for more than four years we think it is important to have fresh eyes because because I have been on this I've been in this world for almost four years Clint's been in Oma trained every year and you can have a miss you
086can miss that the county is not represented on your agenda and like we don't want we don't want to miss things like we do it it is small but it does matter at the end of the day and so um we do want fresh eyes from the the policy perspective so it's not anything we have to vote on but we would just like to make sure we're all aligned that this is a something that we'll continue to do even as board members who feel passionate about it Go L um and then the very last thing that we do have to update is all of our training certificates we all have had only training those do need to be posted on the website so that has to go up so that's our final piece um so
087then for the next steps Nikki are to resolve all action items I'm I think you already have thank you so much for doing that we went through all of them um two weeks ago we will of course like close a loop on all this and we'll double check all items Justin um if you all approve is the official uh om training uh design and then what we're going to do to help is the policy committee we're going to create just like a glossery checklist of the top the items for school guidance this will help just all of us um as we're sitting here to understand like hey if that that's something that does need to be enclosed make sure that this is stated that way if Josh or whoever's president misses something or forgets to
088say something say hey make sure you you make that motion this way um so that kind of helps us all just keep the top level things at the top of mind now we're doing that but I do want to just reiterate or do we a great job so there there is not like misses um there's not misses that are having that are really glaring um and then there are a couple things that we are going to just review um and fly for conversation during the Board review there are like I said we went after the ones that everything I'm noting that I wouldn't even say were not in compliance because some of them were not a compliance issue it was like we just want to it's strongly recommended we want to be able to to
089you know add that um extra layer but there's some additional things that we um do want to just PL during our session him and I need to look through it again because we've marked this up quite a bit but there are a couple things worth um discussing um that we'll bring to you guys next week um and that's it I've got consequences for non-compliance like fine penalties what so we did a a full only audit uh three years ago we at that point had um jeez please we got we did have one thing and it was me it was my very first board meeting I'd ever been to I asked a question that should have been asked in open I asked it in Clos and I did not realize it was an open question and
090so if you if you were on the board you remember we got a letter from the state that said said you're in compliance but during this one Clos meeting session one of your board members asked this question that so um that's pretty good so we great and and even these if we were to have been audited nothing there there would have been nothing said fine no now if we had if I remember correctly because I did go back and look at the letter that we received from the state when we um were audited last time um if there had been anything more egregious like they had I mean we had to like put those clo those Clos meeting um those questions that I had asked public and we had to say we said something in
091open that should have been or said something closed it should have been open so we had to acknowledge that I think if there had been that like open multiple months maybe we would have been fined or maybe something would have happened but it was so small that it was I wouldn't even say it was a hand slab there's some some decisions can be reversed yeah thanks so there there are various reactions to Natural confidence yeah because the compliance component out of these is like the county but we wouldn't like the on the agenda that is a policy like noted in policy but not showing that what we were't showing that when we were audited by the state and it was not one that they even ackowledge to us so these are very small and I
092think the county the more I looked at that one too it might have been in the the real of not specific Like You Must List the county but it was one of those recommendations and it was super simple yeah like niap the county so just do it yeah yeah that's why when I said this at the like the 177 I did not even call them blackup clients because a lot of them we just decided like let's just do it um so anyways any other questions no question for me but I thank you very much both of you I mean yeah trying to run run this meeting and follow our agenda I appreciate everything you guys have done with it obviously tonight we've been able to catch a lot of these things and you know I
093would say you know none of us are professional degree board members right we're all volunteers of this community doing the absolute best that we can with students first um and I think it's always important to keep that in mind so I I appreciate that but again no no reason why we can't continue to better ourselves as a board as a district to reflect academically what our our faculty staff and students are are achieving too so thank you very much for doing that I just want to say too that glossery checklist that you I was thinking about that as were talking um and the fact that you guys are willing to do that is pretty awesome because as somebody who's been where Josh is sitting and then some watch somebody before them it's like you get
094up there for the first time and yeah we have our Oma training and we've been through you know how many meetings by the time I was in that position and I start saying things and I'm like am I saying this because I'm supposed to or is I saying this because the last person did it like it's kind of hard you know and you're doing it on the Fly kind of you know so I think Just for future because Josh is also leaving Gone Gone in May that I think I was like not they G to keep talking about everyone leaving but I think the glossery checklist for who it just I mean while they are small things it's just nice to look at something and be like am I saying this because I'm supposed to
095or just because yeah I'm just feeling it out you know so that's awesome there's a there's another aspect too that yeah we have pretty complete list this should be on the minute so even the policy committee could have once a year just look at the last month most recent one yes yes yes yes and overall like the policy like I can't even I there's no point in going in the path but as somebody who came to their first meeting and wasn't even like I hadn't even done my oath yet and they went into close and then I came back and they're like oh and Kimberly albach you're on policy and I was like I'm on what like and going to those first two years of Po policy meetings at and having no background in policy
096and seeing how it was done compared to how it is now is absolutely unreal like the gains we've made like I don't know what was being done I'm not going to lie it was me for two years I have no idea what we were doing like we were trying to work through it me and the superintendent at the time it wasn't Clint um but we didn't no we were not literally as informed as you guys are right now and we were I was trying to read a press and trying to do these things and the fact that we have such a capable pair of people right now is pretty awesome un your applause right there dumper did anybody else have anything regarding that you may review thank you good work amazing very good work very
097very great appreciate it um as far as uh press reading we have uh we need to entertain a motion tonight for the address read for first reading and that is paragraph 2 Sub sub paragraph 50 paragraph two sub paragraph 100 six sub paragraph 40 6 sub paragraph 65 six sub paragraph 210 and six till 27 I don't know if I'm reporting to those readings the right way but you get the general idea are we voting on them now that's what I'm first reading no okay all right well I will move on to miscellaneous and my words moved um in connection with that uh yesterday I received a letter from The Office of the Attorney General um we have a uh an allegation filed against us by a Miss Misty Wells this is in relation to
098the omma uh an allegation of violation of om as far as what was verbally stated on our consent agenda relating to September committee September committee meeting minutes so that is being reviewed by internally with the district and then we're also working with legal counsel on that to provide a response um or requests Illinois retired Teachers Association same thing they always do right name and information I got that Monday I believe I don't know all right um all executive session um I'm going to entertain a motion to enter into executive session to discuss appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees that deals with paragraph 5 ilcs 120 sub paragraph 2 so paragraph C of one negotiations five ilcs chapter 120 sub paragraph two sub paragraph C item two okay a second yes Mr
099hend yes Anderson yes yes yes see an open session at 6:59 p.m January 29th 202 yeah good idea